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Procedia Procedia
CIRP 00 CIRP
(2017)100
000–000
(2021) 259–264
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia

31st CIRP Design Conference 2021 (CIRP Design 2021)

28th CIRP
Interoperability of CAD Designmodels
Conference,
and May s France
specifications
2018, Nantes,
SysML for the
aautomated cchecking of ddesign rrequirements
A new methodology to analyze the functional and physical architecture of
existing Rihab
products for
Brahmi a,b,*
an assembly
, Moncef Hammadioriented
a
product
, Nizar Aifaoui b
family Choley
, Jean-Yves identification
a

a
Quartz EA7393, Supméca, 3 rue Fernand Hainaut, 93400 Saint-Ouen, France
Paul Stief *,LGM,
Jean-Yves
b
Dantan,
ENIM, Av. Ibn Alain
El-Jazzar, 5019 Etienne,
Monastir, Tunisia Ali Siadat

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 1 49 45 29 27; fax: +33 1 49 45 29 29. E-mail address: [email protected]
École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et Métiers, Arts et Métiers ParisTech, LCFC EA 4495, 4 Rue Augustin Fresnel, Metz 57078, France

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 3 87 37 54 30; E-mail address: [email protected]

Abstract

Currently and in view of technological development, mechatronic systems have become more and more complex. This will undoubtedly influence
Abstract
the design of products. For this reason, designers do not stop developing new solutions to best ensure customer satisfaction on functional,
dimensional and geometrical requirements. However, to achieve a finished product satisfying all stakeholders, designers should face a multitude
Inoftoday’s business
problems. Among environment, the trend of
them, the difficulty towards more product
data exchange variety
between the and customization
different developers is unbroken.
contributing Dueto to
thethis development,
design process ofthe need of
a finished
agile and reconfigurable
product. Several researchproduction
works have systems
focusedemerged
on datatoexchange
cope withbetween
various Computer
products and product
Aided Designfamilies.
(CAD)Toand design and optimize
Computer production
Aided Engineering
systems as well
applications (CAE)as toorchoose the optimal
at the CAD product
development andmatches, productlevels.
manufacturing analysis methods
However, fewareworks
needed.
studyIndeed, most of the known
the interoperability between methods aim to
all the product
analyze a product
development or one
levels andproduct family
the system on the physical
engineering level.
one. For Different
instance, theproduct
lack offamilies,
continuityhowever,
betweenmay thediffer largely in termsmodel
system-engineering of the which
numberhas anda
nature
globalofview
components. This fact
on the product, andimpedes
the CAD an model
efficient comparison
which integratesandthechoice
parts of
andappropriate
assembly CAD product family
data, combinations
causes an enormous forlost
the time
production
in the
system. A new
verification andmethodology
validation is proposed
process to analyze existing
of requirements. In thisproducts
paper in a view of their functional
methodology allowing theand interoperability
physical architecture.
betweenThethe
aimsystem
is to cluster
level
these products in
specifications andnewtheassembly
CAD model oriented
of a product
product families for the optimization
being designed of existing
is proposed. Based assembly
on SysML lines and
diagrams, thethe creation needs
customer of future
andreconfigurable
the functional
assembly systems.
analysis of Basedlead
the product on Datum Flow Chain,
to the definition theinitial
of the physical structure
structure of the
of the products
product is analyzed.
assembly. Functional
The results of thissubassemblies
step are used are identified,
as an input byand the
aCAD
functional
designeranalysis is performed.
to detail Moreover,
the architecture a hybrid functional
of the mechanical assembly. and physical
Finally, thearchitecture graph data
product assembly (HyFPAG)
requiredis for
theverification
output which anddepicts the
validation
similarity between
are extracted from product
the CADfamilies
model andby providing design
then used back to support
enrich theto preliminary
both, production
SysML system
model.planners
The system and product
engineerdesigners. An illustrative
uses the collected data in
example
the SysMLof amodel
nail-clipper
to check is and
usedvalidate
to explain the proposed
the product methodology.
requirements An to
according industrial caseAstudy
a V model. pedalonof atwo product
bicycle wasfamilies of steering
used as an example columns of
to illustrate
thyssenkrupp
and prove thePresta France isand
effectiveness then carried out
efficiency to give
of the a firstapproach.
proposed industrial evaluation of the proposed approach.
© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
© 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Peer-review under
This is an open responsibility
access of the
article under thescientific committee
CC BY-NC-ND of the
license 28th CIRP Design Conference 2018.
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0)
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 31st CIRP Design Conference 2021.
Keywords: Assembly; Design method; Family identification
Keywords: Product Specification Model; SysML; Mechanical Assembly Data; CAD-SysML interoperability

1. Introduction of the product range and characteristics manufactured and/or

assembled in this system. In this context, the main challenge in
I.
Due Introduction
to the fast development in the domain of requirements
modelling andmust be carefully
analysis is now notstudied
onlyand this requires
to cope with singlethe
communication and an ongoing trend of digitization and interconnection between several disciplines to guarantee
products, a limited product range or existing product families, it.
The technological
digitalization, development
manufacturing of recent
enterprises are years
facinghas resulted
important but
ThealsoModel
to be able to analyze
Based System andEngineering
to compare products
(MBSE), to define
is a
in increasingly complex products. Indeed, mechatronic
challenges in today’s market environments: a continuing systems new product families.
multidisciplinary It canthat
approach be observed that classical between
ensures collaboration existing
tendency towards reduction of product development times will
are in turn influenced by this complexity and this and product families
the various areinregrouped
actors in function
order to validate of clients
the design or features.
of systems that
shortened
undoubtedly product lifecycles.
influence In addition,
the work there is
of designers. an increasing
Faced with this However, assembly
present high degreeoriented productOne
of complexity. families arelanguages
of the hardly to find.
used
demand
development,of customization,
the demandsbeing at the same
of customers keeptime in a global
increasing. For byOn the product
system family
engineers to level,
satisfyproducts
differentdiffer mainly in
constraints is two
the
competition
this reason,with the competitors all over isthetoworld.
goal of designers ensureThis trend,
customer main characteristics: (i) the number of components
System Modeling Language (SysML) which allows engineers and (ii) the
which is inducing
satisfaction the development from macro to micro
on all levels. type of components (e.g. mechanical, electrical,
to document the properties from different disciplines to electronical).
markets, results in diminished
In order to properly meet the lot customer's
sizes due to augmenting
needs, all the Classical methodologies considering mainly single products
describe the whole solution [1] in an understandable way by all
product varieties (high-volume to low-volume production) [1]. or solitary, already existing product families analyze the
To cope with this augmenting variety as well as to be able to product structure on a physical level (components level) which
identify possible optimization potentials in the existing causes difficulties regarding an efficient definition and
production system, it is important to have a precise knowledge comparison of different product families. Addressing this
2212-8271 © 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
2212-8271
This is an©open
2017access
The Authors.
article Published
under theby CCElsevier B.V. license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0)
BY-NC-ND
Peer-reviewunder
Peer-review under responsibility
responsibility of the
of the scientific
scientific committee
committee of28th
of the the CIRP
31st CIRP
DesignDesign Conference
Conference 2018. 2021.
10.1016/j.procir.2021.05.064
260 Rihab Brahmi et al. / Procedia CIRP 100 (2021) 259–264

actors. Thus, the MBSE approach using SysML is a good system and CAD applications [8].
choice in system design to better manage all the constraints [2, There are those who were interested in the generation of
3]. assembly sequences such in [9, 10] were they proposed an
In this paper the interoperability concept between the systems Assembly Plan (AP) generation method based on the
engineer step who has a global view on the products to be simplification of the assembly CAD model. Firstly, the
designed and the CAD step that has a detailed representation of proposed tool allows the simplification of the CAD model by
parts and assemblies is developed. This work proposes a new eliminating the connection parts (screw, nut, pin, etc.). After
method, which allows the automatic data exchange between extracting the CAD data from Solidworks© environment, the
system specification models and CAD models which favours simplified AP generation can be performed without
the continuity between the two works. considering the connection parts. A case-based reasoning
module permits the insertion of the previously eliminated parts
II. Related works into the simplified AP to obtain a global AP.

In system engineering, each product to be designed In our research work, we are interested in the exchange of data
necessarily goes through development phases that help to between the two disciplines given the major importance which
satisfy all the requirements sought. lies in the interoperability of these fields which makes it
The system engineer details this process in a V-shaped cycle, simpler to validate the design step. In fact, much research
which illustrates the succession of steps to be validated. works have studied the importance of interoperability between
The steps start with a need analysis and end with a validation these disciplines. For example [8] treated the interoperability
of the requirements, going through a detailed design step. It is process between CAD system and CAE applications helping
thus important to ensure effective collaboration between designers to find the CAD assembly data in complex
system engineers who have a global view of the system and mechanical assembly model, facilitate the structuring of the
detailed design engineers who have mastery of particular areas useful designing data. In [11] researchers studied the
such as computer-aided design. importance of the interoperability between CAD/CAM/CAE
Several research works have focused on the development systems in order to facilitate the data exchange between all of
of both fields of model-based systems engineering (MBSE) and them.
computer aided design (CAD). However, little work has
investigated the interconnection between the two engineering III. Proposed methodology
fields. Indeed, in the MBSE domain, some researchers were
interested in the definition of the functional architecture of each The work of the system engineer and that of the designer
product like proposing new approaches to derive functional are complementary except that a difficulty in exchanging data
architectures from requirements and use cases and to model arises given the difficulty of finding a standard means of
them in SysML[4]. communication between them. For this reason, a methodology
Other researchers were interested to the validation step such in has been proposed which makes it possible to ensure
[5] by using SysML for planning verification and validation on interoperability between the two fields by favouring
the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). Indeed, this consistency and continuity of the verification and validation of
approach is used to extend the advantages of MBSE into later the product. This methodology is summarized in the workflow
stages of the construction project. detailed in Fig 1. The workflow is developed to facilitate the
There are those who were interested in the inderstanding of exchange of data between the designer and the system engineer
mechatronic systems and their architecture. In [6] the who must present a coherent model of the system then check
researchers have developed a SysML-based methodology for the satisfaction of all the constraints to finally validate the
mechatronic systems, which consists of two phases: a black product digital mock-up already designed.
box analysis with an external point of view that provides Each step is detailed in the following sections and the proposed
comprehensive and consistent set requirements, and a white methodology is illustrated with a bicycle pedal example, which
box analysis that progressively leads to the internal architecture activates automatically when rotating the crankset. A gear train
and behaviour of the system. multiplies the rotation of the central axis, and a generator
In the CAD domain, researchers have determined whether the converts kinetic energy into electrical energy. The latter is
estimation of the ease of handling and insertion of parts can be sufficient to activate the light emitting diodes of each pedal,
provided by multimodal simulation using virtual environment and charge a storage capacitor. The residual energy provided
(VE) technology, rather than using conventional methods by this capacitor allows the diodes to continue flashing for a
based on tables such as the Boothroyd and Dewhurst charts [7]. while even if the rider is stationary.
Some other research works were used to extract CAD data from
an assembly CAD model like the Computer Aided LABoratory
(CADLAB) tool which constitutes a bridge between CAD
 Rihab Brahmi et al. / Procedia CIRP 100 (2021) 259–264 261

Fig. 2.The requirement diagram of the pedal.

1.2. Structure definition

Fig. 1.The workflow of the proposed methodology.
After delineating and taking into account the functional
1. Global study requirements, the system engineer is invited to fix the initial
structure of the assembly.
1.1. Requirements definition A mechanical assembly is a set of parts and/or subassemblies
linked together by assembly constraints. To design it, all the
In order to be designed, each product begins with a need
details of each component must be taken into account. Since
specification, therefore an idea that must be well studied and
the system engineer is not required to be a specialist in CAD
analyzed in order to better understand it. This will involve a
design considering that he has a global view of the mechanism.
multitude of solutions among which the most satisfactory will
For this reason, he is invited to model the overall structure of
be chosen.
the assembly, which contains only the blocks that they deem
In system engineering, the definition of requirements plays a
essential in the functioning of the system.
central role in the analysis of customer needs. In this activity,
Using system-engineering tools, this primary structure can be
the system engineer is called to understand the problem in order
illustrated in a SysML block diagram. It will contain the
to be able to set all requirements that the final product must
fundamental block of the assembly related to other sub-blocks
fulfill. They specify all functions, missions and conditions
that constitute it, connected by composition links, all without
relating to the implementation of the system.
going into the details of each block.
In this part the system engineer devotes a part to the
In the illustrative example, the pedal must be made up of 4
requirements relating to the analysis of the design solution by
essential subassemblies which are: the axis of the pedal, the
imposing maximum values of some assembly analysis
body of the pedal, a generator and a double intermediary wheel
indicators (maximum number of parts, time and assembly
as shown in Fig. 3.
quality) to verify their satisfaction following the 3D design.
These indicators are detailed later in the assembly analysis
phase.
The requirements of the system are represented in a
Requirement-SysML diagram. Each of them is characterized
by its name, an identifier and a text which briefly details its
purpose.
These requirements are linked together by links to
hierarchically structure all the requirements. In the validation
example of our methodology, the functional requirements of
bicycle pedal system and a zoom in the design part are
Fig. 3.The initial structure of the pedal.
represented in Fig. 2.
262 Rihab Brahmi et al. / Procedia CIRP 100 (2021) 259–264

1.3. Functional architecture definition 1.4. Traceability and allocations step

At this stage the functional requirements as well as the The traceability step has a major importance in improving
initial structure of the assembly have been modeled in the the quality of the assembly. Indeed, through this step, the
MBSE environment. To have a detailed view of the assembly system engineer allocates each block of the assembly structure
and its functions, it is necessary to analyze it as well as possible to the requirement it must meet. The modifications that will be
before starting the 3D design phase. For this reason, the activity executed on any of the requirements will automatically
of defining the functional architecture turns out to be an influence the assembly blocks. Thus the link between the
interesting step in understanding the mechanism. requirements and the components of the assembly will be
This step consists of determining the set of functions that forged at this stage.
the system must perform. It specifies the functional needs of This step is used to ensure the consistency of the solutions
users. This specification facilitates the comprehensibility of the and to check not only that the proposed solution is good but
process to be followed to facilitate the definition of the that it is also the best while taking into account the good
sequence of functions to be satisfied by the product. compromise between the proposed solution and the
This functional architecture is modeled in a SysML activity requirements that have been imposed.
diagram. It is used to model the operating steps. Each function In the example of the pedal, this can be represented in a
has an input which allows its activation and its output is an requirement diagram where each requirement is associated
input for the function which follows it. with the subassembly that it must satisfy by linking them with
In the example of the pedal, the functions that it must satisfy links of satisfaction.
are represented in Fig. 4. First, the mechanical pedaling energy
must be transmitted in order to adapt it later. The next step
consists in converting this mechanical energy into electrical 2. XML-MBSE data generation
energy which must be well managed in order to produce light
flashes. Once all the informations related to the understanding of
the system, from a functional and technical point of view has
been detailed, the extraction and automatic generation of this
information become a very important step to allow their
transmission to the designer in order to design a satisfactory
mechanical assembly on all levels.
The purpose of this step is to transmit a file understandable
by designers which summarizes the work previously detailed
by the system engineer. For this reason, a simple, easy,
accessible and understandable format by everyone can be
chosen. The extraction format is Extensible Markup Language
(XML), which has now become a universal data description
format. It offers interesting opportunities to allow the
development of new integration strategies within information
systems. So, new macros were programmed in python are used
to facilitate the exchange of data between the two fields in order
to better improve the collaborative work. Using these macros,
it becomes possible to store data collected from the MBSE
environment and to extract them in XML format, which will be
used later by the designer to fully understand the work
previously detailed without having to resort to complicated
means. The resulting file is a well-structured file that models in
a simple way the work of the system engineer.
Fig. 5 illustrates the xml file resulting from the pedal
example. The first part is dedicated to the requirements to be
satisfied by the pedal, the second illustrates its initial structure
and the third contains its functional architecture.

Fig. 4.The functional architecture of the pedal.

 Rihab Brahmi et al. / Procedia CIRP 100 (2021) 259–264 263

T: total assembly time: this is an indicator that gives the value

of the time required for the assembly to be properly assembled
and finished.
N: minimum number of parts: this is an indicator that studies
the number of parts that must be required after the design, since
there will probably be parts that will not influence the
functioning of the mechanism so can be eliminated.
E: assembly quality which is an indicator that is used to control
the quality of an assembly and which is proportional to the time
and number of parts in the assembly.
These metrics are calculated and generated automatically after
finishing the design. They present a major importance in
verifying the response of the design to the requirements
imposed by the systems engineer.

5. XML-CAD data generation step

Once the assembly analysis step is done and the design

Fig. 5.The XML-MBSE data extraction of the pedal
solution is validated according the set of identified metrics, the
XML-CAD data generation step can begins. At this stage, it is
3. CAD design step
necessary to have a mean that allows the transfer of the
In order to be close to the perfect result that we are aiming collected data from CAD environment to the system engineer
for, the CAD specialist will carry out the work of the system to have a detailed vision on the detailed design of the assembly
engineer. During this step and with the help of digital so that he can continue his work. In this context, the XML
simulation techniques and computer tools, the designer is led format is chosen because of its ease of understanding. The
to study the informations collected from the system CAD data extraction process is automatic, through macros that
engineering and generates the digital mock-up of the product. we developed in order to generate informations related to
This modeling will allow a much more detailed representation mechanical parts constituting the assembly, and converts all the
of the mechanical assembly and to all the details of parts that necessary informations for the validation of the assembly by
constitute it. the system engineer. These data are related to the assembly and
Once the designer has completed this activity, the its related components such as the name, volume, area,
assembly design is then ready to be submitted for analysis. The assembly time, geometric constraints between the parts in
3D CAD design of the pedal is given in Fig. 6. contact, etc.
The XML file resulting from the generation of the CAD data of
the pedal is sent to the system engineer in order to validate the
design solution.

6. Enrichment and validation

6.1. Definition of the assembly architecture

In this step, the system engineer is invited to add

enrichments to the structure of assembly initially proposed.
This new structure will make it possible to model the assembly
architecture by adding links between parts, based on
Fig. 6.The CAD design of the pedal.
informations collected from the CAD-XML file.
The architecture of the pedal assembly is represented in an
4. Assembly analysis step internal block diagram.This diagram contains the parts making
up the assembly with the links between them.
A good design solution should be well designed, but also
it has to meet all the requirements. For this reason, each 6.2. Design validation step
designed solution need to be analyzed by studying its response
to the assembly analysis metrics previously proposed by the This is the step that sums up the interconnection between
system engineer. These metrics are: T, N and E where: MBSE and CAD models. All types of mechanical systems can
264 Rihab Brahmi et al. / Procedia CIRP 100 (2021) 259–264

be validated using the following method: Using allocation IV. Conclusion and future works
matrices from SysML, the system engineer gathers both data.
The ones collected from CAD, which are mechanical parts, and Given the low presence of means that facilitate the
the others collected from MBSE, which are requirements. automated exchange of data between MBSE and CAD models,
During this step, he models all the requirements in the rows of we proposed in this paper a methodology allowing the
the allocation matrix and tests them one by one. Therefore, if continuity of product develomemnt between the design
the selected component satisfies the attributed requirement, he specification level and the detailed design level.
confirms its satisfaction by manually adding “satisfy” relation The first deals with the product in the MBSE environment
in the appropriate box, which combines the requirement and the to collect all the requirements that the designer must take into
mechanical component. Then, he goes on to test the next one. account in phase two, which is the CAD development. The
Otherwise, he returns a report to the designer in order to make main goal of the proposed methodology is to facilitate the data
the necessary appropriate modifications in the designed exchange so as not to lose information and to allow the system
solution. engineer to make decisions, according to the requirements
Fig. 7 presents the validation of the pedal assembly imposed, to validate or not the design solution proposed by the
solution. For example, one of the requirements that the system designer.
engineer needs to check is that related to the analysis indicators Based on this cooperative work between the two
requirement, which are E, N and T. He checks if the assembly disciplines and after the validation of the design solution, it will
satisfies all the requirements or not. These indicators can help also be necessary to develop this work to allow the designers
him to decide whether the proposed solution is the most to automatically generate the assembly and disassembly
satisfactory by comparing the values proposed by the system sequences of each product. That obviously makes the goal of
engineer with that calculated through the designed solution. In work in progress and future work.
the treated example all of them were satisfied so the solution
can be retained.
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Fig. 7.The validation of the pedal design.